CH/Earning Character Points
The following rules for gaining Character Points are going to be in place for the Castle of Horrors. They are meant to encourage exploration, risk-taking, and helping the GM keep the game going. The Rewards Base CP: 0 per session. CP is awarded on an expedition basis, and an expedition is defined as a round-trip through the portal. An expedition may take several sessions to play out, though theoretically more than one expedition could occur in a single session if people are focused. There is no penalty for missing a session, as long as you're around for parts of the expedition. Loot: Gaining loot is central to the gaming experience. Everyone gets 1 CP recovering any decent loot. Decent loot is anything that can be sold at a pawn shop for more than real money (ie, $100/person). The loot does not need to be sold, it just needs to be worth that much. Pretty much by definition, stealing paving stones is not worth real money, no matter how many of them you steal. In addition, recovering any of the following Grand Treasures is worth +3 CP, and recovering 2 or more them in the same expedition is instead worth +4 CP: *The Icon of Crowspire *The Master's Amulet *The Weeping Statue *The Leprechauns' Pot of Gold *The Library of Crowspire *1/3rd of the Treasury of Crowspire *1/3rd of the Treasury of Crowspire *1/3rd of the Treasury of Crowspire *The Witches' Cauldron *Vengeance *The Champion's Sword *The Xak Tsaloth Treasury *The Platinum Disks *The Black Tome of Skullmound *The Earth Hammer *Evenstar's Golden Armor (This list is not exhaustive and other items will be added later.) Exploration: Exploration is also central to the gaming experience. Everyone gets 2 CP if they explore a significant new area. A new area is a major section of the Castle of Horrors and the Caves Beneath: several rooms, at a minimum. Areas may span multiple levels. Exploring an area means going through it, encountering most of the denizens of the area, and having time to rest in it a bit (so neither peaking into a room nor making a panicked run down a staircase count as exploring). Everyone gets +2 CP if they explore more than 4 new areas. Death: There is no penalty for dying or changing PCs. It's better to risk everything and keep the game moving than to do nothing cautiously. Roleplaying: 1 CP on a per player basis for anyone who role-plays a quirk well enough that I remember it. You can't get this bonus again for a given quirk until you've gotten it for all your quirks. Another +1 CP on a per player basis for being disadvantaged by a mental or social disadvantage. Campaign Support: 4 CP on a per player basis for helping the GM out and maintaining the campaign. This includes doing things like maintaining loot lists, helping organize and focus the group into doing stuff, or keeping useful campaign logs on the wiki. For the most part, this stuff is "homework", and it can be tedious, but it's really helpful so it gets a big reward. I'm not going to make anyone do it, but I want to recognize the people who do. The Pay-Off A highly successful expedtion, in which 4 areas are explored and two Grand Treasures are recoverd, is worth 9 CP for each player, plus up to 6 CP per player for good role-playing and campaign support. A very focused and lucky group could do such an expedition in two or three sessions of play, but four or five is more likely. A typical expedition would recover 1 Grand Treasure and explore a couple of new areas, and would net 6 CP for each player, plus role-playing and campaign support awards. It might be possible to do such an expedition in a single session or less, but two sessions seems reasonable. A terrible expedition would be one in which no real loot was uncovered, and no new areas were explored. It would be worth 0 CP. There is no reason to do this poorly.